Learn Italian from the Back of a Box

I made a pretty wild purchase at the supermercato yesterday: a boxed mix called Torta della Nonna and it's cooling on the counter as I write.  It was my first and I learned a lot more than just how to make a cake.

It looked so easy on the shelf!

Very quickly, the preparation became a joint project, me reading the 16 steps of directions out-loud to Michele who would then correct my pronunciation.  A lot of the words were ones I had never used or heard before: serbandone (laying aside part of it), miscela (mix), bucherellare (to poke holes). This was no American -" add 2 eggs, half-a-cup of water and put it in the oven" kind of mix.

One of the steps that puzzled me was what to do with the mix they told me to save, ending up with an extra couple of tablespoons.  We finally figured out it was to dust the counter-top (yes, the counter top - Italian companies assume that specialized equipment is not necessary and that counter tops are clean) where I would roll out the pastry for the top of the cake.  That's when I realized the average Italian housewife does not keep flour on hand as a staple.  She buys her bread at the panificio, her pastries at the pasticceria, her focaccia at the focacceria.  Why keep extra flour around?  Space in the single food cabinet in the typical Italian kitchen is limited enough already.

Of course there was the constant need to mentally convert back and forth from the metric system.  This is easier in Italy than when I am at home trying to fix an Italian recipe in my Cincinnati kitchen - but it's still intimidating to see everything on the back of the box in grams:  350 g di miscela base per l'impasto, 10 g di pinoli,  forno a gas preriscaldato a 180 centigradi.  

Not big, but everything we Americans need (dishwasher & microwave).
When you move in  the only things in the kitchen are the tiles and pipes sticking out of the walls.

Maybe the weirdest observation I made during my cake-baking Italian lesson was the way a foreign culture can get inside your brain and change how you solve problems.  I got to the step about mattarello and realized we didn't have a rolling-pin.  My natural instinct in Cincinnati would have been to run to the store and buy one.  But not  here.   It didn't even occur to me.  See that clear glass bottle in the dish drainer, one we usually take to the man at the "Vini Sfusi" store to fill with wine?  It was perfect!

Mamma mia!  I'd hate to see how much time it would take Grandma to make this cake without the convenience of a mix.